1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to a presence-based interactive communications system, and in particular, to handling of missed contact attempts based on preference and presence information.
2. Description of Related Art
Presence-based interactive communication services are callee-centric, where callees (presentities) publish, in real time, their presence information (such as, the availability, activity, local time, location, current status of the active devices/applications and the corresponding preferences, etc.) to callers (presence watchers) who have subscribed to the presence information. The presence information is designed to enable the callers to more efficiently and effectively contact the callees.
Currently, when a caller requests a communication session (e.g., voice, text or multimedia) with a callee, but due to the unavailability of the callee, the communication session is unable to be established, a message is generated and transmitted to the caller based only on the callee's (presentity's) presence information, but not on the callee's or caller's media preference. For example, the caller may prefer to receive the response message using either a real-time text, voice and/or multimedia media type (e.g., instant messenger or a customized voice greeting) or a non-real-time text, voice and/or multimedia media type (e.g., e-mail or sending message directly to the caller's voice mailbox). However, existing presence systems do not accommodate for the media preference of both the caller and the callee.
In addition, existing preference and presence systems provide only limited callee presence information to the caller in a response message. For example, when a caller attempts to communicate with a callee by text, voice or multimedia, and the callee is unavailable for the communication session, the caller may want to obtain the following information: (1) the callee's current activity is; (2) when the callee will be available; (3) emergency contact number for the callee; and (4) alternative contact names/numbers.
Based on existing presence technology, the caller may receive a presence-based voice greeting that includes the callee's current activity, but not any of the additional information listed above.
Furthermore, the callee is not able to control the content of missed call response messages according to different authorities or priorities granted to the caller by the callee, which may reduce the callee's communication and privacy satisfaction. For example, depending upon the importance of the caller to the callee or the category of the caller, the callee may want to provide more or less presence information to the caller. However, current presence systems do not allow a callee to provide different presence information to different callers.
As a result, what is needed is a communications system and method for generating and providing customized messages to callers based on presence information and preference information of both the callee and the caller.